The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has completed its investigation into SpaceX’s second Starship flight, which took place in November last year and ended with mid-flight explosions of the first-stage Super Heavy booster and the upper-stage Starship spacecraft.

美國聯邦航空管理局 (FAA) 已完成對 SpaceX 第二次 Starship 飛行的調查，該飛行於去年 11 月進行，並以第一級超重型助推器和上級 Starship 航天器在飛行中爆炸而告終。

The Elon Musk-led spaceflight company is now awaiting approval to launch the Starship — the most powerful rocket ever to fly — on its third test flight, with the expectation that SpaceX could get the green light some time next month, with the rocket taking to the skies again a short while later.

馬斯克(Elon Musk) 領導的航太公司目前正在等待發射星際飛船(Starship) 的許可，這是有史以​​來最強大的火箭，進行第三次試飛，預計SpaceX 可能會在下個月的某個時候獲得批准，火箭將在過了一會兒，天空再次出現。

Following November’s flight test, SpaceX led the investigation efforts with oversight from the FAA and participation from NASA and the National Transportation Safety Board.

11 月的飛行測試後，SpaceX 在 FAA 的監督下以及 NASA 和國家運輸安全委員會的參與下領導了調查工作。

“SpaceX identified, and the FAA accepts, the root causes and 17 corrective actions documented in SpaceX’s mishap report,” the FAA said in a statement released on Monday. “Prior to the next launch, SpaceX must implement all corrective actions and receive a license modification from the FAA that addresses all safety, environmental, and other applicable regulatory requirements.”

FAA 在周一發布的聲明中表示：“SpaceX 確定了 SpaceX 事故報告中記錄的根本原因，並採取了 17 項糾正措施，並且 FAA 也接受了這一點。” “在下次發射之前，SpaceX 必須實施所有糾正措施，並獲得美國聯邦航空局 (FAA) 的許可證修改，以滿足所有安全、環境和其他適用的監管要求。”

In a post on its website on Monday, SpaceX shared some details regarding its analysis of November’s flight, noting that it was the first Starship test to achieve stage separation after April’s maiden test flight failed just a few minutes after liftoff.

週一，SpaceX 在其網站上發布的一篇文章中分享了有關 11 月飛行分析的一些細節，並指出這是繼 4 月首次試飛在升空後幾分鐘失敗後首次實現階段分離的星艦測試。

“Following stage separation, Super Heavy initiated its boostback burn, which sends commands to 13 of the vehicle’s 33 Raptor engines to propel the rocket toward its intended landing location,” SpaceX explained. “During this burn, several engines began shutting down before one engine failed energetically, quickly cascading to a rapid unscheduled disassembly (RUD) of the booster. The vehicle breakup occurred more than three-and-a-half minutes into the flight at an altitude of ~90 kilometers over the Gulf of Mexico.”

SpaceX 解釋說：“在級分離後，Super Heavy 啟動了助推燃燒，向火箭的 33 個猛禽發動機中的 13 個發送指令，推動火箭朝預定的著陸位置前進。” 「在這次燃燒過程中，幾台發動機開始關閉，然後一台發動機發生劇烈故障，迅速引發助推器的快速非計劃拆卸（RUD）。飛行器在墨西哥灣上空約 90 公里的高度上空飛行 3 分半鐘後發生故障。”

SpaceX said the most likely root cause for the booster RUD was “filter blockage where liquid oxygen is supplied to the engines, leading to a loss of inlet pressure in engine oxidizer turbopumps that eventually resulted in one engine failing in a way that resulted in loss of the vehicle.”

SpaceX 表示，助推器 RUD 最可能的根本原因是“向發動機供應液氧的過濾器堵塞，導致發動機氧化劑渦輪泵入口壓力損失，最終導致一台發動機發生故障，導致發動機損失機動車。”

It said that to prevent this from happening again, it’s made hardware changes inside the booster oxidizer tanks to improve propellant filtration capabilities and also refined operations to increase reliability.

該公司表示，為了防止這種情況再次發生，它對助推氧化劑罐內的硬體進行了更改，以提高推進劑過濾能力，並改進了操作以提高可靠性。

In the same test flight, the Starship spacecraft continued on its journey until a leak of liquid oxygen propellant caused “a combustion event and subsequent fires that led to a loss of communication between the spacecraft’s flight computers,” which resulted in the loss of the vehicle shortly after. SpaceX said it has since made hardware changes to improve leak reduction and fire protection.

在同一次試飛中，星艦飛船繼續其旅程，直到液態氧推進劑洩漏導致“燃燒事件和隨後的火災，導致飛船飛行電腦之間的通訊中斷”，從而導致飛船損失不久之後。 SpaceX 表示，此後已對硬體進行了改造，以減少洩漏並提高防火性能。

“More Starships are ready to fly,” the company said as it awaits launch permission from the FAA.

該公司在等待美國聯邦航空局的發射許可時表示：“更多的星際飛船已準備好飛行。”

SpaceX hopes to use its next-generation heavy-lift rocket for cargo and crew missions to the moon in the near future, and, looking further ahead, for similar flights to Mars, too.

SpaceX 希望在不久的將來使用其下一代重型火箭執行貨運和載人登月任務，並且展望未來，也可以進行類似的火星飛行。